Salt Lake City launches ebike voucher lottery to help residents drive less. 

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• Benjamin Wood
• A man demonstrates a lineup of ebike models as Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall looks on outside City Hall on Tuesday, July 9, 2024.

WASHINGTON SQUARE—Hundreds of new electric bicycles could be hitting the streets of Salt Lake City in the coming weeks, with residents eligible to offset some of the costs of purchase under a $230,000 incentive program that launched Tuesday.

The ebike vouchers, ranging from $300 to $1300 based on income levels and bike models, will be distributed by lottery in partnership with local bike shops. Applications can be made through slcgreen.com/ebike and are due by 11:59 p.m. on July 16.

At a kickoff for the program outside City Hall, Mayor Erin Mendenhall thanked the City Council for supporting and funding the ebike pilot, which she described as the next step in a larger air quality effort that began with a program to swap gas-powered lawnmowers for electrified models. She noted the high cost of car ownership and said the benefits of cycling are multifaceted, helping to ease traffic congestion, lessen air pollution and cut costs for residents.

"And most of all, I like it because bikes are fun," Mendenhall said. "You never get to know a place as well as you do when you ride a bike."

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• Benjamin Wood
• Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall kicks off an ebike voucher program on Tuesday, July 9. 2024.

Mendenhall—who regularly travels by electric bicycle and hosts community bike-to-work rides—said that ebikes are particularly useful for the routine "five-mile-or-fewer" trips that most Salt Lakers take on most days, like to jobs, schools, churches, restaurants and shops.

"A lot of people will go farther than that," she said, "but these bikes are great for those around-town trips."

The annual cost of owning a car is estimated by AAA to average roughly $10,000, through insurance, maintenance, fuel, lease payments, depreciation and other expenses (the broader societal costs of tailgate emissions and traffic violence are not included in that figure). By comparison, entry-level ebikes tend to cost between $1,000 and $2,000, with minimal costs for battery charging and far cheaper maintenance expenses than an automobile.

"When we can take some of those costs, or all of those costs, off of our residents, we’re increasing their livability and affordability of being in the city," Mendenhall said.

City councilmember Eva Lopez Chavez also noted the high cost of owning and driving a car, and said the ebike incentives will provide a more affordable transportation option to those who take advantage of it.

"This isn’t just about people who are passionate about climate change," she said. "These can be for people who want a more affordable way to get to work, who want to go down to one car because of expenses, or who want to spend more time outdoors. There’s so many reasons why we want to incentivize [cycling]."

The participating bike shops include Rad Power Bikes, Contender Bicycles, Trek Bicycle, Bingham Cyclery and Magnum Bikes. The program, which was structured based on similar efforts in Denver and other cities, requires voucher recipients to purchase on-site from a participating bike shop.

"We also heard loud and clear that bike etiquette and safety are very important to the community as we launch this program," city sustainability director Debbie Lyons said. "That is why it was important for us to work with the shops and stores to make these bikes available to purchase in-person, so you can interact with the bike experts in these shops and learn more about safety."

But safety for cyclists is highly dependent on the physical design of streets, with Salt Lake City's wide, multi-lane surface highways inviting dangerous driving behavior and leading to frequent injury and death. The city has taken steps to reduce the danger of some corridors—with efforts like the lane reductions on South Temple and 900 West, protected bike lanes on 200 East, 200 West and 300 South and fully separated cycling paths like the 9-Line Trail—but the downtown core remains egregiously auto-oriented and frequently dissected by UDOT highways that are inhospitable to anyone outside a car.

Mendenhall said the streets are ready today for an influx of ebike riders, and will be made increasingly inviting for walking and cycling as time goes on.

"We’re building bike lanes all the time and we’re trying to improve the bike lanes that we have," she said. "We’ll keep looking at streets and building new streets through the lens of bike capacity."

The city also plans to host cycling resource fairs and etiquette classes in partnership with Bike Utah, which will be open to voucher recipients and other members of the public interested in cycling. The first of those events is scheduled for August 15, according to BikeUtah co-executive director Trilby Cox.

"Ebikes are definitely changing the way Salt Lakers approach commuting," Cox said. "If you ride one, you know it’s not just a way to get from point A to point B—it connects us with our environment, it makes us and our air healthier and it definitely brings us joy."